The present invention relates to a structure of a head for writing or reading data to or from a disk medium, and more particularly, to a structure of a floating type head for stopping in contact on the disk medium during the non-operating condition and recording or reading data to or from the disk medium while it is floating thereon during the recording/reproducing operation.
In disk apparatus for recording or reproducing information to or from a disk medium, a contactxe2x97xafstartxe2x97xafstop system (CSS system) is often employed, in which the head slider is in contact with the disk surface during the non-operating condition, and floats over the surface of the disk when it rotates during the recording and reproducing operation, in order to avoid wear due to contact between the head slider on which a head element is loaded and the disk surface.
FIG. 1 shows a head slider of the related art. FIG. 1(a) is a plan view of the surface of the head slider opposing the disk, and FIG. 1(b) shows an end surface of the air outgoing side of the head slider.
At a surface 1a opposing a disk 50, a couple of projected stripe type rails 3 are formed in basic material 11 of a head slider 90. At an air bearing surface 3a of the rail 3, an adsorption preventing pad 5 is formed to prevent adsorption or touching of the air bearing surface 3a of rail 3 to the surface of disk 50. At the air incoming end side of the air bearing surface 3a, a tapered portion 6 is formed to easily generate a floating force for the head slider 90. At the end surface of the air outgoing side of the head slider 90, an electromagnetic transducer 2 such as an inductive head, magneto-resistive element and/or spin bulb magneto-resistive element is formed.
In disk devices using a CSS system, the head slider 90 is supported by a suspension (not illustrated) having a spring. When the disk 50 is rotating, the head slider 90 floats by receiving the air flow generated by rotation of the disk 50 at its disk confronting surface, and is in contact with the CSS zone 50a of the disk 50 (FIG. 1(b)) when the disk 50 is not rotated. During the reading or writing operation, the head slider 90 moves across the surface of the rotating magnetic disk 50 while it is floating therefrom, and the head element 2 mounted to the head slider 90 reads and writes information from and to the predetermined tracks of the disk 50.
In recent years, with further reduction in the size of magnetic disk devices, such disk devices have been introduced into portable apparatus such as a note-size personal computer as memory. However, the magnetic disk devices are exposed to external shock. Therefore, high durability and shock resistance are required for such magnetic disk apparatus.
In magnetic disk devices using the CSS system, the head slider is in contact with the CSS zone at the surface of the magnetic disk while the disk is not rotated. In this condition, when the magnetic disk apparatus receives shock during transportation or by dropping, the head slider is tilted and an edge 7 of the basic material 111 illustrated in FIG. 1(a) slides on the surface of the magnetic disk 50. The edge of the head slider is hard and sharp. Therefore, when the edge 7 slides on the surface of the magnetic disk 50, the disk 50 can become damaged, generating the phenomenon that data is destroyed or data reading or writing is disabled. Thereby, shock resistance of the magnetic disk apparatus is lowered. As a structure for alleviating wear of the magnetic disk and head slider, the edge of the basic material of the head slider could be chamfered. However, this method is not so effective because the amount of chamfering cannot be increased. Moreover, the width of the floating rail up to the side edge of the head slider could be widened in order to chamfer the edge of the rail, but when the width of the floating rail is widened, the floating characteristic changes and the desired floating height cannot be attained.
Accordingly, one object of the present invention is to enhance the shock resistance of magnetic disk devices.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a head slider which can alleviate wear caused by the disk.
Moreover, a further object of the present invention is to provide a head slider which has good floating characteristics.
The head slider of the present invention has a chamfered pad between the side edge and rail at the surface opposing the disk. In this manner, the pad avoids contact between the edge of the basic material of the head slider and the disk. Contact between the pad and disk can occur, but since the pad is chamfered, the disk is not easily damaged. In comparison with chamfering the basic material and rail, the present invention has less influence on the floating characteristics of the slider, so the amount of chamfering can be increased. Therefore, damage to the disk can be alleviated remarkably and shock resistance of disk apparatus can be much improved.
Moreover, the head slider of the present invention can have a pad formed with a height lower than the height of the slider rail at the side edge at the surface opposing the disk. According to this structure, not only the contact between the edge of the basic material of the head slider and the disk medium can be avoided, but also the pad does not regulate the floating height of the head slider. In this manner, the shock resistance of disk apparatus can be improved, without increasing the floating height of the head slider and thereby high recording density of the disk apparatus can be realized.
Here, it is desirable that the hardness of the pad be lower than the hardness of the basic material. According to this structure, contact between the pad and disk medium is generated but since hardness of the pad is lowered, the disk is not damaged as easily. Therefore, damage to the disk is alleviated and shock resistance can further be improved.
Moreover, the height of the pad can be made equal to the height of the slider rail, and the pad and slider rail can be formed of the same material. According to this structure, the pad and slider rail can be formed by the same process. Accordingly, manufacturing cost can be reduced through reduction of manufacturing processes.